St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-05-21
The Interesting Story Of. the Bottomless
Boom of the Stock of the Iron
Hill Mine.
A Wild Report Afloat That There Were
Thirty Thousand Tons of Rich
Ore in Sight.
The Supply Of the Pocket Exhausted and
10000 Shares Hastily Thrown
on the Market.
Some Well-Known Capitalists Heavy
Losses---It Will Take Dividends
Hereafter to Talk.
Special Correspondence of the Globe.

Special Correspondence of the Globe.
DEADwooD, OAK, May 1S.-Interest
in the Iron Hill boom fiaScO of last year
is freshened by the publication in the
Lead City Tribune of letter from r.
ID. Millett, late superintendent of the
Iron Hill mine and mill, disclosing some
secrets of the manipulations by which
the directors sought to work off the
stock at big profit. No complete his
tory of that great fake will probably
ever be published; none of the facts
that may leak out through the falling
out of the conspirators will be published
except by independent, outside papers.
SO much as is known here may be of
interest as showing the evil of stock
Onfdence-gameS-whe unsuccessful.
The Iron Hill Mining company
was originally based on, five mining
claims in the Carbonate district, stocked
at S1,250,000, viz: Two hundred and
fifty thousand shares at S. par. A ma
jOrity of the stock was pooled to hold
until the first days of July, 1886. A
Shaft was sunk in 1885 to a blanket for
nation of refractory ore, and a smelter
was bought for its reduction. One of
the first jobs of the directors was to
take away part of the Iron hill claims,
and form thereon another company
Segregated Iron Hill. This they CAPT
talized the same as the parent company,
making another million and quarter
of stock-virtually watering to that eX-
tent and declaring stock dividend to
themselves of 100 per cent. Seggre-
gated, during the BOOM went to $3.50,
representing clean stake of S3775.000.
The shaft on the original property
struck rocket Of free milling ore and
a ten-stamp mill was set up to reduce it,
The boom dates from this event. The
find was heralded as that of vein of
unparalleled extent and richness. The
widest reports were from time to time
published in the papers as authentic:
Thirty thousand tons of rich ore in
sight" Assays were given of gradually
increasing richness, until we were SOL
EMMY assured that the ore in the mine
would go $4,000 ton. Everybody was
vigorously excluded from the mine and
mill and all representations were ac-
cepted on faith in the directors and SUI
perintendent.
TIE FIRST SILVER BRICK
that came from the mill was heralded as
monetary Messiah. 1t was carried
around the country and exhibited in
bank windows as a lusuS natur9. Stock
advanced rapidly. Dividends of cents
a month were declared. But the date
of the pool was still some months away.
To keep up the boom the directors Or
dered ten more stamps and gave Supt.
hlillet as authority for the estimate that
with the increased milling capacity the
output could be increased to 5000 per
day; that there was free-milling ore in
sight to run the twenty stamps year.
Millet now says in his letter that he adj
vised against the purchase of the addi-
tiOnal stamps, and objected to setting
them up after they came, because there
was only a pocket of the ore. Right
there is the turning point d the cOnspir-
acy. If the directors did put in the
extra stamps, knowing that there was
not ore to run on, it was clean .'bilk"
on their part Millet was a party to
it, for he allowed the fraud to go on
not only acquiescing, but he advised his
friends to purchase the stock after that.
Millet himself claims that he bought
stock after it had reached So, having re-
fused to invest when it WAS $3.50. He
says, mystifyingly, that he '.did not buy
on his judgmeHtr But the boom in
creased through the spring and summer:
the bricks came down with increasing
frequency, and were hailed with more
unconsciOnable cackling; dividends
were regular, and at length a double
dividend was declared and the assur-
ance was vOuchsafed that there would
be another the next month. Everything
i'll stocks went sky-Scraping. 1t was
reported that Iron Hill had sold at S..
At that time HOmestake was selling at
S2l; its capital shares were only half
as many as Iron Halls, its plant is up
in the millions and it had been paying
dividends steadily for years at the rate.
of thirteen year, 40 cents share. Yet
plenty of men would pay IS for Iron
Hill on faith and sell Homestake at S21
to raise the money. =,
OUT OF BRICKS.